white house

www.theverge.com

The White House today weighed in on the possibility of minting a trillion dollar platinum coin, telling reporters that there is "no substitute" for simply raising the US' borrowing limit, but declining to explicitly rule it out as a potential solution to American debt problems. White House Press Secretary...

www.techdirt.com

We've covered for years how overly aggressive the Olympics are in protecting their "IP" -- to the point that they often get special laws passed that grant them extra IP rights, which they use to block pretty much anyone who hasn't paid from using the word "Olympics" at all, or...

thenextweb.com

Last night TechDirt managed to secure a copy of the draft cybersecurity executive order that the Obama administration has circulated. TNW has read TechDirt’s report and the executive order. This post is an explanation of current thought concerning the draft, its contents, and naturally, our own analysis. As primer, if you recall...

www.techdirt.com

First I would like to thank readers of this site and others in the tech community for their support of our phone unlocking campaign. As you may know, that campaign culminated with 114,000 signatures on the White House petition website, an FCC and White House endorsement of unlocking and several...

www.theverge.com

On Saturday, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping made a public pledge to scale back production of HFCs (Hydrochlorofluorocarbons), especially potent greenhouse gases used in refrigerators, air conditioners and insulating foam. According to the White House, the proposed phasedown would have an effect equivalent to removing 90 gigatons...

venturebeat.com

It seems even Twitter is a little shaken up about the recent rash of major media account hacks. The company sent out a letter to publications saying it expects more hacks and provided tips on how to keep Twitter accounts safe. In April, hackers broke into and tweeted from...

thenextweb.com

Cybersecurity legislation may soon find a way through the Senate. If a bill does make it through the upper house of the US Congress, it will still face reconciliation with the House itself. However, the bill discussed as a potential deadlock breaker in the Senate, could be an utter nonstarter...

www.extremetech.com

The Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA), the latest attempt by the US legislative branch to hinder online freedom, just received a significant blow from concerned citizens. On the official White House petition site, an anti-CISPA petition has reached 100,000 signatures. That's not just a big number -- it's...

venturebeat.com

Cyber criminals hacked into computers of the White House Military Office, the White House told Politico today. The breach is said to come from attackers in China. The White House confirmed the hack on Sunday, after Republican publication The Washington Free Beacon posted rumors of the incident. According to...

venturebeat.com

Much like its response to the public petition to build a Death Star, the latest video uploaded to the official White House YouTube channel once again proves that presidential administration is at least somewhat in tune (or perhaps in step?) with today’s popular culture. Rather than release a string...

arstechnica.com

The controversy over the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act intensified on Tuesday when a White House spokeswoman warned Congress not to pass "cybersecurity" legislation without "robust safeguards to preserve the privacy and civil liberties of our citizens." While the statement by National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden did...

www.techdirt.com

Exactly as predicted yesterday, President Obama talked about cybersecurity in last night's State of the Union address, including his plan to sign an executive order on cybersecurity. What's a bit surprising is that the executive order... is actually pretty reasonable. Unlike some earlier drafts, it appears that the White House...

venturebeat.com

President Obama will give the Google+ social network a high-profile boost by taking questions on a Hangout video chat starting at 5:30 p.m. Eastern tonight. The Hangout was announced a week ago, and it will hopefully allow for a more interactive experience than usual for political discourse. The President...

www.theverge.com

Following last October's Congressional report stating that Huawei’s networking equipment poses a national security risk, the business group in charge is announcing plans to back out of the US market, reports IDG. On Tuesday, carrier business group CTO Li Sanqi announced that "apparently, due to whatever the geopolitical reasons,...

googleblog.blogspot.com

In the past month, both the President and Vice President of the United States have come to Google+ to participate in "Fireside Hangouts" to discuss the challenges the country faces and answer people's questions. On March 4, it's First Lady Michelle Obama's turn as she joins her first-ever Fireside Hangout to...

www.theverge.com

Last month it was confirmed that the Obama White House was drafting an executive order for cybersecurity best practices, and now we're getting a sense of what that order will contain. The Associated Press has viewed a draft of the seven-page order, which would instruct the Department of Homeland...

www.businessinsider.com

In an alarming false tweet Tuesday, the Associated Press claimed that President Barack Obama had been injured in explosions at the White House: Within minutes, AP Corporate Communications reported that the tweet was false. That is a bogus @ap tweet. -- AP CorpComm (@AP_CorpComm) April 23, 2013 The AP later...

www.theverge.com

US Vice President Joe Biden wants to tell you about what it's like to be him and how he sees the world. At least, that's the explanation he and the White House are giving for a new website that launched earlier today, "Being Biden," which will act as the...

www.techdirt.com

We've noted the unfortunate trend of the Obama administration vindictively going after any whistleblowers (despite one of Obama's first moves in office being to encourage whistleblowing). To date, the Obama administration has been involved in six prosecutions of whistleblowers using the Espionage Act... twice as many such uses of all...

www.theverge.com

The White House has just issued its official response to a petition calling for President Barack Obama to legalize the practice of unlocking cellular phones in the United States. In short, the administration agrees wholeheartedly. "The White House agrees with the 114,000+ of you who believe that consumers should...

betabeat.com

It's a hard truth confronted by many a would-be world-changing entrepreneur that the industries that seem most ripe for disruption are also the businesses most heavily regulated, putting that dream of a tech company that revolutionizes education or health care or transportation a little farther out of reach. So what's...

www.pcworld.com

U.S. President Barack Obama has signed an executive order requiring that government data be made available in open, machine-readable formats, expanding open-access requirements from earlier in his administration.A new open data policy, released along with the executive order Thursday, calls information a "valuable national asset" with value that multiples...